Last night, I came across this photo of Vlade Divac over at The Grand Archives, and it immediately brought to memory the NBA commercial with Vlade and Chris Webber giving the Sacramento Kings dance team some pointers. So yeah, Vlade and Webber dancing with dancers.

Halftime Observations The Champ Bailey Effect
Champ Bailey has barely played this season, having missed 11 games in the regular season and starting just three. The past four weeks, he’s slowly eased his way back into lineup, finally starting today with plans of playing a full game. You’d think Sir Thomas Brady would take his shots at the long-in-the-tooth, one-time great, particularly given his health issues this year. And yet, Brady spent the entire first half throwing at every Denver defensive back other than Champ, proving the old man can still take away one half of the field when he’s out there — at least through one half. Keep an eye on that in the second half.

Joe Buck No Longer Annoys Me
Joe Buck has gotten a lot of flack over the years — some of it deserved and some of it not so much. Admittedly, I used to be among his most ardent critics, as I found his tone often condescending and his incessant talking annoying. But I gotta admit, Buck has annoyed me less and less the past few years when calling NFL games, and he’s done a damn fine job thus far with partner Troy Aikman — who I think is phenomenal in the booth — in this NFC Championship Game. So kudos, Joe Buck. You no longer annoy me. At least when calling football games.

That Navorro Bowman Play Makes Sick – On Several Levels
Navorrow Bowman is my favorite player in the NFL. He’s been my favorite player since his playing days at Penn State. That incredible and incredibly gruesome strip and recovery he made makes me sick … sick because of the resulting gruesome injury, sick that the referees could fuck up that call so badly and sick that the NFL rules in place prevent the right call from being made. Here’s hoping Bowman can make a full recovery and continue his incredibly awesome career, and here’s hoping the NFL stops with its idiotic rules and questionable referring. I’m so sick right now.

Monday, January 20, 2014

I wasn’t planning on writing anything about this, but as I
continue to read the ridiculous bashing of Richard Sherman all over the
interwebs, I can’t keep quiet any longer. The outrage over Sherman’s postgame
comments is so ridiculous it’s almost mind-blowing. If you live under a rock
and haven’t seen the interview, you can watch it here.

First and foremost, he didn’t even say anything outrageous
or offensive. He didn’t use any profanity, and he didn’t attack anyone
off-limits like a family member or someone who had nothing to do with the game.

Secondly, he had just made a stellar play that sealed his
team’s ticket to the Super Bowl. He had just finished playing a game of
football, one of the most violent sports on the planet. His adrenaline was
flowing, and he was understandably hyped. To expect him to be completely calm
and composed in that moment, in those circumstances, is asinine. You shove a
microphone in a man’s face 30 seconds after playing in a football game like
that, results like that are to be expected.

Thirdly, and I’ve touched on this topic before, athletes
that reach the absolute pinnacle of their profession have certain characteristics that have allowed them to do so, and those manifest themselves
in both positive and negative ways (and I don’t think this “incident” was
necessarily a negative manifestation). The man thinks he is the best at what he
does, and he has to have that attitude to be successful. Sometimes that comes
off the wrong way.

The bottom line is that trash talking is a part of sports.
Sports are competition, whether it’s at the professional level or a pickup game
at the playground. It’s about showing you are better than your opponent, and
pride is involved. In any sport, you are going to get trash talk, whether it’s
millionaires who are the best of the best or just a bunch of guys from the
neighborhood playing for nothing more than pride and the love of the game.

Many athletes have used trash talk to intimidate their
opponents or to get in their heads and take them out of their games. Muhammad
Ali, Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, Deion Sanders, I could go on and on. Hell, I
even have a friend who has a bit of a temper, and we quickly learned that if
you could agitate him and get under his skin, it took him completely off his
game. And we took advantage of that. It’s gamesmanship, all a part of the competition
and finding an advantage. And within the lines of the field or the court, it’s
actually pretty fun. It adds spice. It drives the players to step up their
game, either to back up the talk they are dishing or to shut up the guy who is
running his mouth.

Furthermore, there are a lot of worse things that athletes
do. Drugs, drunk driving, cheating on spouses, fighting, even murder. The point
of this post isn’t to pass judgment on anyone, but if you are looking for
reasons to lambaste an athlete, you can find a lot better ones than Richard
Sherman’s post-game comments. I'm just so tired of the holier-than-thou and
overly sensitive mindsets that have overrun our society.

Finally, for those of you who don’t know much about Richard
Sherman besides what the media and internet comment boards tell you, the man
graduated Salutatorian (second ranked) in this high school class and graduated
from Stanford with a 3.8 GPA. That tells me he’s a lot smarter and harder
working than most of the people who are blasting him. Oh, and he started the
Richard Sherman Family Foundation. So no, he’s not a thug. He’s arrogant in a
profession where arrogance is a survival skill. What all of the people who are
crucifying Richard Sherman today fail to realize is that maybe Richard Sherman
knows what he is doing. Maybe the abrasive, cocky man you see on the football
field is a character. A character that allows him to survive and excel in a
demanding profession. And maybe he’s just having some fun with it.

Richie Ashburn was one of the most beloved sports personalities ever in the City of Brotherly Love. Not only was he a Hall of Fame centerfielder, but he was part of the greatest broadcasting duo of all time along with Hall of Fame announcer Harry Kalas. Those two men literally helped raise me on the game of baseball, and I miss them both every single time I watch or listen to a Phillies game.